VP9 Hardware Acceleration Broken for Firefox and Edge

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

This is an issue that has been persistent across many version of Windows 10 and Sandboxie for years but to my knowledge not investigated yet.

Short summary: VP9 video hardware acceleration reverts to software decoding for sites like Youtube when Firefox is sandboxed. The hardware is perfectly capable of utilizing hardware decoding once running without Sandboxie. Note, H264 is being properly processed with acceleration.

Current system: Windows 10 - 20H2 Intel N5000 / UHD Graphics 605 Firefox 87.0 Sandboxie Classic 5.49.5

Steps taken to test for configuration impact on the issue so far:

• Started with a fresh (portable) Firefox profile
• Started with a fresh Sandbox with default settings
• Gave direct access to all sandboxed processed for IPC
• Gave full window access to all sandboxed processes

[xame-arch]

Try on the computer that is not working to create a new sandbox with (right click - sandbox setup - resource access - add program - direct access - add program - full access - add program - registry access - add program - IPC access - add program - windows access) the program can be the browser or graphics drivers or both for Tor 32 bit, adding Open to this program helped me, maybe it will solve the problem in this case by creating logs. I have a video to help with logging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFpo78712M

[DavidXanatos]

is this still broken with 0.8.1 ?

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

No change since the initial report with Classic 5.53.3 and the latest Firefox. However it doesn't seem isolated to Firefox as sandboxing Microsoft Edge also blocks VP9 acceleration support.

There seems to be a general problem with anything GPU related as websites that make use of WebGL are sluggish and low in performance while sandboxed.

[DavidXanatos]

this shoudl be fixed in the 1.0x lien of builds if its stil happens for some program try UseWin32kHooks=program.exe,y and write here that its needed and or which program for chrome and alike its on autoamtically

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

Tested inside a new Sandbox with 1.0.9 installed. Unfortunately still the same with either MS Edge or Firefox.

[DavidXanatos]

even when you add UseWin32kHooks=y to the sandbox config?

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

Indeed, I had explicitly added this to make sure the option was enabled.

This is Sandboxed versus running without Sandboxie:

[DavidXanatos]

hmm... isee I'll take a look into it, the issue is that debuging siuch things in a VM is not so great as tehre the GPU is fake and many things defualt anyways to CPU rendering

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

Are there any kind of logs I could provide that would be useful?

[ghost]

FF 91.5.1esr x64. First video starts 5-15 seconds after pressing play. Sometimes there is only black screen and it is not played at all. Restarting FF few times fixes it.

[DavidXanatos]

hmm... that might be more difficult than anticipated.

so you can get it to work if you

1. remove UseRpcMgmtSetComTimeout=AppXDeploymentClient.dll,y from the Templates.ini
2. open access to COM and disable use of RpcMgmtSetComTimeout in the advanced tab
3. switch the box to compartment mode (reduced isoaltion)

then for me firefox's gpu acceleration for video playback starts working again.

please confirm.

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

Unfortunately I am unable to complete those steps. If this method were to work would it be possible to implement it into future releases so this workaround isn't necessary?

[isaak654]

UseRpcMgmtSetComTimeout=AppXDeploymentClient.dll,y is already turned off since Sandboxie v1.0.10 / 5.55.10:

removed UseRpcMgmtSetComTimeout=AppXDeploymentClient.dll,y used for Free Download Manager as it broke other things -- only if you use Free Download Manager together with the setting RpcMgmtSetComTimeout=n in a sandbox, you have to add the line manually to your Sandboxie.ini

Regarding points 2 and 3 provided two comments ago, those options are already available in the Plus edition. You won't find them in Sandboxie Classic because the lead developer's goal is to encourage as many people as possible to adopt the Plus interface. However, they can be configured manually in the Sandboxie.ini configuration file.

[ghost]

Guys what is the latest SBIE version which does not cause fallback to software decoding for Firefox and also which does not have black screen/spinning circle issue when we try to play any video file?

[ghost]

Spinning circle for 30 seconds on YT and many other video websites. Dropping to software playback mode. Lags and not smooth playback Videos refuse to play when paused and resumed.

[ghost]

I gave up and switched to Edge for watching videos. Firefox has issues with playing 1080p and 2x 480p videos on my hardware Edge is able to handle 3x1080p with only a little lag when entering full screen

[github-actions[bot]]

As it has been 3 months since the last activity, we are automatically closing this issue in 14 days. If it is still present, please respond to help us investigate on newer Sandboxie versions. Thank you for your contribution!

[W1K23]

Hardware Acceleration doesn't work in Firefox when running in Sandboxie. #3102

The issue remains unresolved, there is still no HW acceleration in Firefox when running in SBoxie! Chromium browsers don’t have this issue. According to the developer it’s due to security reasons, but that’s nonsense, because if that were the case there would be no HW acc. in chromium browsers either when running them in SBoxie. The topic shouldn’t be closed, the developer should fix it already. He should solve the problem, because for over a year I haven’t been able to use Firefox because of this! The developer hasn’t fixed it for years! I’ve asked multiple times and he responded that he doesn’t care, doesn’t have time, doesn’t use Firefox and that I should use another browser etc. I don’t understand this at all. :\

[pulsarclarinetokrabee]

Especially with the upcoming changes to Chromium based browsers regarding Manifest V3, having a fully functioning alternative becomes more relevant.

I would ask for this issue to be given a new look, with a possible solution that comes built-in to Sandboxie.

[githubusername2024]

You can use MS Edge instead of Chrome. It has its own set of issues, especially on Win11 24H2 (same issues like 23H2 had after release; tabs show black screen, msedge.exe does not terminate in SBIE).